Police exhumes first 20 bodies of people killed by occupiers in Lyman

IRYNA BALACHUK – SUNDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2022, 17:01

Law enforcement officers have exhumed 20 bodies from the mass burial of people killed by the occupiers in the city of Lyman, Donetsk Oblast. Among the victims there are children and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Source: National Police of Ukraine

Quote: "Investigative operative teams, forensic experts and medical examiners, jointly with the Prosecutor’s Office are working on site. During the first few days, 20 bodies of civilians and soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine were exhumed".

Details: The police reports that at the moment, the excavations are taking place on two locations: according to the preliminary reports, nearly 200 civilians were buried on the first one, while the second one is a mass grave of the Ukrainian army soldiers. There are children among the victims.

Civilians were buried in single graves, and the military – in a 40-metre-long trench.

A witness told the police that he had buried nearly 20 Ukrainian soldiers on the occupiers’ order. There was a family with two small children among the victims.

There are plaques with the names of the deceased on some graves, but there are unmarked graves as well.

The police emphasised that they collected biological samples from all the bodies and conducted examinations in order to identify the victims and determine the cause of their death.

What makes the work harder is the fact that most of the bodies are in different stages of decomposition; there is even a bag which only contains bones.

In total, since 29 September, the police have discovered 87 bodies in liberated settlements in Donetsk Oblast; 38 civilians have already been identified.

According to the preliminary reports, most people died as a result of shrapnel wounds or of natural causes. There are bodies with gunshot wounds.

A few days ago, bodies of 21 people, who died in occupation and were buried in the backyards of their houses, were re-buried in the town of Sviatohirsk, Donetsk Oblast. They were identified, and their families were able to say goodbye to them.

Background:

• On 2 October in the afternoon, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that the mopping-up operation in the city of Lyman in Donetsk was complete and the city was cleared of all Russian occupiers.  
• On 5 October, Zelenskyy showed what Lyman looked like after being liberated from the Russian occupiers.
• On 5 October, Ukrainian media reported that over 50 burials with the bodies of civilians were found in the recently liberated city of Lyman. Some of the bodies had not been identified, and some plaques on the graves bore only numbers.
• On 7 October, it was revealed that two burial sites had been discovered in Lyman. One of them consists of individual graves and the other of a mass grave. 

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